


Pine Cone Horses

by GilliganGoodfellow



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Age Play, Protective Eskel (The Witcher), Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Lambert (The Witcher), Soft Eskel (The Witcher), Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Soft Jaskier | Dandelion, Soft Lambert (The Witcher), Vesemir Doesn't Get It But He Tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26268232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilliganGoodfellow/pseuds/GilliganGoodfellow
Summary: Outside, a strong branch has been tied to a rope and, in turn, tied to a tree to make a swing. Sitting on the swing is a toddler, dressed in loose trousers and a vest, bare feet and hands caked in dirt from playing around outside.He doesn’t look like a toddler, but in this house things aren’t always what they look like.There is a magic here that makes things different.
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Eskel & Lambert (The Witcher), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Lambert
Comments: 17
Kudos: 127





	Pine Cone Horses

**Author's Note:**

> Gilligan has hit writer's block on her WIP so have some fluffy nonsense instead <3 <3

Roughly half a mile out from Kaer Morhen is a small, wooden house. No one remembers who used to live there, a smallholder or maybe a mad recluse. No matter, it is empty and has been for as long as the witchers can remember. And it is perfect. 

The front room is a standard family set up. A dining table, a cooking area, chairs around the fire. In the corner of the room there is a box with soft toys, painted wooden blocks and a ball made from leather. 

In the back room is the master bed, with a bunk bed next to this, and a chest for clothes and accessories.

Outside, a strong branch has been tied to a rope and, in turn, tied to a tree to make a swing. Sitting on the swing is a toddler, dressed in loose trousers and a vest, bare feet and hands caked in dirt from playing around outside. 

He doesn’t look like a toddler, but in this house things aren’t always what they look like. 

There is a magic here that makes things different. 

In this house it is a toddler sitting on the swing, holding on tight like his older brother told him to.

The swing picks up speed and the toddler rests his head against the rope, blinking slowly as a scarred man moves to the other side in front of him, taking hold of the swing for a moment to slow the speed before letting go.

“Not too fast.” The man says to the toddler’s older brother. “He’ll fall off and hurt himself.” 

The boy pushing the swing is around six years old, with brightly coloured clothes and a daisy chain in his hair. Like his brother, he doesn’t look his age. 

But there is magic in this house. And he is around six years old. 

He nods, and pushes gently, sending the swing on a slower ark forward and then back.

A few more goes on the swing, and the toddler squirms. 

“Down you get, Lamb.” Eskel says, lifting the toddler to stand on the ground. “You okay?”

He shakes his head, and points down at himself.

“Good boy for noticing this time.” Eskel smiles. “Let’s find you a bush. Geralt, little one needs to piss.”

The white haired man nods from where he is standing in the doorway, watching them leave before stepping forward to pick up Jaskier and help him onto the swing.

He forgets his own strength in the push, and the boy whoops with joy as the swing flies forward and then back, twisting on the rope.

The magic of the house gives Jaskier the safety to be a child, without the rules of nobility and its expectations and restrictions. He can get dirty outside instead of studying in a stuffy school room. He can make loud noises instead of being seen and not heard. He runs around the house in a way that would have earned him the switch before.

In this house he can be a child, not the tiny adult that he had been forced to be before. 

Eskel returns with Lambert in a piggyback, and the toddler giggles as he watches his older brother play on the swings. 

The laughter of the children fills the woods around the house. And it is perfect. 

* * *

Vesemir spends the day hunting, and stops by the house to drop off venison for the evening meal. 

The Old Witcher does not understand the house. The magic here is strange and otherworldly to him. But he understands its importance to the family that lives here, and Vesemir knows that not understanding something does not necessarily make it evil or wrong. All Witchers sadly know this lesson too well. 

So he accepts the rules of the house and plays along as best as he can. He greets the boy with a wide smile, handing Jaskier a pine cone and showing him how to use twigs to turn it into a horse. 

Eventually, Geralt and Eskel are able to coax the shy Lambert out of his hiding place in the bedroom, and Jaskier delights in giving him the pine cone horse. The toddler eyes Vesemir wearily, before relaxing and sitting, making a quiet clippity clop sound with his tongue as he walks his new toy along the ground.

Remembering so many innocent little boys playing like this, before agony ended their lives in the trials, has Vesemir blinking hard against tears. He declines the invitation to stay for dinner, and wishes the family a good day before making his way back to the Keep. 

* * *

Lambert wakes up crying and screaming in the night, and Eskel carefully lifts him from the bottom bunk, sitting on the floor with the boy in his lap and rocking him gently, kissing his hair and whispering into his ear. Geralt kneels beside them, also whispering, and stroking the boys hair and back.

The magic of the house gives Lambert the safety to feel that he doesn’t have otherwise. He can cry here. Scream here. And here he can be held and comforted. This is where these things are safe. Where he can feel pain both old and new, and his family can make it better. 

In this house he can be vulnerable. He isn’t a witcher here. He isn’t strong and brave here. 

He just is.

Jaskier wakes up older, but soon the magic has him again and he climbs down from the top bunk, taking his pillow and blankets with him. Geralt follows him into the front room after a moment and sees the boy making two rows of chairs in the middle of the room, the chairs facing outwards so they form a corridor. Leaving Jaskier to his imagination, Geralt returns to sit with Lambert and Eskel, and they remain that way until Jaskier returns and, without a word, pulls the blanket off of the master bed and drags it into the front room. 

Geralt and Eskel look at each other and then slowly stand, Lambert standing between them as the three slowly walk into the front room and…

The dining table is on its side, forming a back wall to the corridor of chairs over which Jaskier has thrown the blanket, making a fort. Inside he has set up bedrolls along with Jaskier’s pillow and blankets. 

Still not saying anything, Jaskier takes Lambert’s hand and leads him into the fort, laying him down on the bedroll before curling up on the floor beside him, and chatting about all the fun they are going to have tomorrow. 

“But you have to sleep now, so that tomorrow gets here faster.”

Eskel sits cross legged at the entrance of the fort, smiling. Beside him, Geralt kneels down, and places a hand on the scarred witcher’s shoulder while they both keep guard over their boys.

Jaskier and Lambert are soon fast asleep and Eskel moves slowly, sliding a pillow under Jaskier’s head before covering him in another blanket. He strokes both boys' hair for a while, then goes back to the master bedroom where Geralt has put the spare blanket on the bed.

Seeing Jaskier take such tender care of his little brother has awoken a memory in Geralt, a memory of being tiny, abandoned by his mother and brought to the strange keep with its trials and training and hardships he has never known before. But within it all there is a small comfort, a slightly older boy with stories of dragons and songs by the hill folk who sits with Geralt at night, holding him close and safe from the hardships of the world.

Now Geralt is the older one, because Eskel has let the magic of the house take him. He curls up next to Geralt on the bed, his head resting against the Witcher’s chest while Geralt tells him stories about dragons and holds him close and safe from the hardships of the world.

In the morning, Eskel will be there for Jaskier and Lambert again, but for a few hours now Geralt takes care of him. And tomorrow night, it might be the other way around. And Eskel will hold Geralt the way he did decades ago.

In this house, they are not witchers. 

* * *

Geralt sighs before closing the door on the house and its magic, picking up their supply bag and turning to follow the family back up to the keep. 

Jaskier is a bard, the age he appears, strumming on his lute with a small, content smile on his face. 

Eskel carries Lambert on his back until the younger witcher asks to be let down. “You alright?”

Lambert nods, and smiles. “Yeah.” 

Words spoken allowed. Lambert’s symbol that the magic is over for him too.

Three witchers and a bard enter Kaer Morhen, and Vesemir has lunch ready for them. After the meal the wolves train in the yard while Jaskier watches, quil scratching against parchment as he works on a play.

The laughter of the family fills the keep, and it is perfect.

* * *

During the night, Vesemir leaves the keep, travelling down the small forest path to the house and its magic. 

He lights the fire beneath the mantlepiece with igni, and for a while he just sits in the front room, studying the toys in the chest, and the small structure made from painted blocks left next to it. 

Then he goes into the bedroom. 

The beds are unmade, and a colourful tunic and trousers lay on the top bunk, a loose vest and matching trousers on the bottom. 

On the small shelf there stands a pine cone horse. 

* * *

When the family returns to the house, new clothes are laid out on the master bed, hand stitched and perfect for adventure and play. 

There are four pine cone horses on the shelf, and a carving of a fox. 

Or is it a wolf?

  
  



End file.
